I have an old Dell USB keyboard (model RT7D10) and it has multimedia keys (volume control, next/prev track keys, etc...). I connected the keyboard to my laptop and it works fine, but the OS does nothing when I press the multimedia keys.

3 Answers
3

I never experienced any problems with Dell keyboards. They're usually just plug-n-play. There are some standard multimedia keys (volume, back, forward) that any Windows >= XP is supposed to recognize out of the box, if the hardware provider implemented them the standard way. For the rest, you'll need a driver.

My suggestion is:

Plug in the keyboard

Wait for the "recognizing new hardware" dialog to complete

Verify that the new hardware was successfully installed

Check your device manager (right-click "Computer" > Manage > Device Manager) and verify that there are no issues (question marks, exclamation marks), that your keyboard appears under "Keyboards" and that you have at least one HID device under USB.

If all else fails, try contacting Dell support. They may have a generic Windows 7 driver that may cover your specific model.